An important step forward

As political leaders in Malta, Europe and around the world have recognised, the agreement reached in Copenhagen this weekend may not be the perfect, comprehensive and legally binding accord hoped for, but it is an important step forward towards addressing the causes and effects of climate change. For the first time in history, the world's major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.

President Barack Obama's leadership was a key factor in securing this historic accord. He came to Copenhagen thinking the Danish Prime Minister had articulated a framework for political and immediately operative steps towards addressing climate change and found the discussion had bogged down over endless speculation about the hundreds of billions of dollars of mitigation that would be desirable for developing countries to have, but that no developed country could pony up now given the economic circumstances around the world. There were also some last-minute concerns with verifiability in China.

Those wishing to rectify the serious imbalances between the haves and have-nots know that more mitigation will be needed than that which is on hand, but to simply bemoan that fact would be to sacrifice the chance to address any present need simply because we anti-cipate greater needs in the future. Similarly, while perfect verification would be desirable on the part of all nations, the discussion about verifiability would be altogether moot in the absence of any workable agreement.

Throughout the summit and the lead-up to Copenhagen, President Obama pursued an approach of "principled pragmatism". As Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi thoughtfully observed, there is more to do but the change in perspective in favour of sound environmental practice should not be dismissed as a "failure", because that unwisely makes the perfect the enemy of the good.

Allowing the US, the EU and 194 countries to agree on the need for reducing emissions with a mitigation target of 2°C, forging a commitment to provide significant sums to developing countries to meet the hardship costs related to slowing development and acknowledging an obligation and understanding of the importance of transparency were all important steps forward. As President Obama said at the conclusion of the summit, if the countries had waited to reach a full, binding and comprehensive agreement, "there might be such frustration and cynicism that rather than taking one step forward we would have ended up taking two steps back".

Mr Obama is clearly not his predecessor, who seemed to lack the necessary ability to reconfigure a game plan when an original one planned in the Oval Office simply wasn't working. Contrary to the all-or-nothing, you're-either-on-our-side-or-against-us previous mentality, the Obama method involves continuous study and reconfiguration of strategy in order to lead to practical judgment. Older forms of diplomacy would have likely led to stalemate, with both sides posturing and neither side committing. This is what was occurring between the developed and developing nations before the President's arrival.

Even some of the US bargainers seemed more transfixed by China's unwillingness to verify its promised reductions over its still-increasing rate of emission than in finding common ground, whereby China would commit to making an environmentally-sensitive promise closer to that of developed nations than emerging ones. In other words, pig-headedness about measuring standards was causing negotiators to lose sight of the fact that China, at least in announced intention, was signalling a move closer to US and EU standards.

The essence of the Copenhagen agreement calls for some of the largest greenhouse producers - China, the US, Brazil, India and South Africa - along with all participating countries, to list specific actions they have taken to control emissions and the commitments they are willing to make to achieve deeper reductions. There is also a method for verifying reductions of heat-trapping gases.

Environmental perfection? Not yet. A genuine, tangible step toward environmental sanity? "Yes, we can!"

The author is the US Ambassador to Malta.